


Tick Tock Goes The Clock

by DesertScribe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Finding Love in Unexpected Places, Magical Artifacts, Other, antique stores
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 16:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11361378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/pseuds/DesertScribe
Summary: Running an antique store can be a dangerous business when magic is involved, but sometimes it has its perks.





	Tick Tock Goes The Clock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



"Excuse me, ma'am, but what is the enchantment on this clock?"

Juana looked up from the magazine she had been pretending to read, but she already had a pretty good guess which clock the customer, a middle-aged woman with a Chicago accent, would be indicating. Yup, it was _that_ clock.

"There's no specific enchantment on that one," Juana said without needing to check the details, because she answered questions about that clock all the time. "It used to belong to a powerful sorceress, though, so it absorbed a high level of background magic." Some people would pay a lot of money for that kind of thing, because official High Background Magic status meant an item had personality, not just figuratively but literally. Juana tended to think those people had more money than sense, but business was business, so if anyone wanted to take the thing off her hands then more power to them and more money to Juana's bank account.

The customer sidled closer to the counter, eagerness for a good story obvious in her eyes. "Anyone I would have heard of?" The unspoken 'when she died' at the end of her question was more than implied. Powerful magic users did not tend to die peacefully in their beds. They were more likely to go out in a big enough blaze of glory to earn a mention on the national news, whether it was in a duel, in a demon deal gone wrong, or in a laboratory accident that took out everything in a quarter mile radius despite the best containment wards.

"No, probably not," Juana said with a small shrug. "Sorry." Yolanda the Great and Mysterious had not gone out in any kind of blaze of glory unless one counted a sudden burning fervor as she embraced the minimalist lifestyle, sold most of her worldly goods, and moved to New Mexico to build a self-sustaining house off the grid. Juana heard that Yolanda occasionally still sent her friends postcards of the 'having a wonderful time, wish you were here' variety, but that was not the kind of story that helped sell magical antiques, and Juana was not about to besmirch the provenance of the goods she sold by making up a better one.

"Too bad," the customer said, but her gaze still lingered on the clock. To be fair, it was a very beautiful clock. To call it a grandfather clock would be an insult, because there was nothing masculine about it. It was all sensuous, feminine curves from top to bottom and too pert for anyone in their right mind to even consider calling it a grandmother clock, not even jokingly. It was more like a MILF clock, but those were the kinds of thoughts Juana kept to herself. "Does it run?"

Juana was about to answer that of course it ran because it was running right now, but then she saw that the clock was in fact stopped cold with its pendulum stilled and all three of its hands pointing straight down at six at the same time, as if they were not connected to any gearing inside. And maybe it was just Juana's imagination, but it even looked like the paint on the clock face was a little bit greyer than before. "Doesn't look like it right now," Juana said, glowering at the clock because she knew it had been running perfectly well and showing the correct time less than half an hour ago when she had checked it against her watch upon returning from her lunch break.

"Too bad, too bad," the customer said again, looking almost genuinely mournful. "I'm almost tempted to buy it anyway, but you know how difficult it is to find anyone willing to tinker around inside HBM artefacts these days." The customer paused, and Juana knew exactly what would be coming next, because it was always the same. "Unless of course _you_ would be willing to...." She let her statement trail off in a way that was meant to be meaningful but could still provide deniability if quoted in a court of law should subsequent events lead to something like a wrongful death suit being brought against her.

"Me?" Juana laughed. "God no, not unless you want to pay more than twice what's already on that rightfully high price tag. Sorry, lady, but I value my fingers and the rest of me too much to go tinkering around inside anything with enough magic to have opinions about what might qualify as a bad touch."

"You can't blame a girl for trying," the woman said with a laugh.

Juana laughed too, as if she were stupid enough to not realize the full extent of what could have happened to her if she had gotten on a High Background Magic artifact's bad side while her hands were in its innards. It was a full-bodied laugh with enough movement all over to conceal the subtle hand gesture that added an extra fifty percent to the price tags of all the items Juana knew the woman had had any genuine interest in buying.

Then Juana went back to pretending to read her magazine while the customer went back to pretending to browse. Fifteen minutes later, the customer circled back through the store to the merchandise she had decided on buying back when she first arrived, picked it up, and brought it to the counter. When the cash register displayed the price of the enchanted umbrella and two crystal ashtrays she had picked out, her eyes went wide then narrowed as they flicked between Juana and the price tags, but she paid without complaint anyway, because maybe she had a tiny bit of a conscience after all.

After the customer had slunk out of the store with her purchases, Juana turned her attention back to the MILF clock, which had once again started ticking steadily and displaying the correct time. The paint on its face was back to its original delicate pastel shades showing a pastoral landscape, no grey tint in sight. "If I didn't know better," she said, "I would think you didn't want to be sold."

The clock gave a single high, sweet chime as if agreeing with her statement.

Juana looked the clock up and down and thought how it really was a very, very beautiful clock. She thought about how they had been together for years now and how she might possibly miss it when it was gone. She also thought the increasingly frequent times that she heard the ticking stutter for a moment, almost like a heart skipping a beat, if she got too close to the clock, even though it never had that kind of a reaction to anyone else. She did not want to mention the L word yet, even in the form of a question, because that was the kind of cat you couldn't put back in the bag once it was out, but she did come to a decision in the privacy of her own mind.

"Maybe I don't want you to be sold either," Juana admitted.

The clock gave a happy tinkling sound that Juana knew was more complex than its number of internal chimes could account for.

"Just don't think for a moment that I don't know about you eating my maple bacon donuts when I'm not looking. Don't even try to blame on the old quill pens, because even if they wanted to, they don't have the capacity."

The clock said nothing, but the paint of its face looked slightly pinker than before.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She and the clock stared at each other for a few moments of ticking silence. Then Juana sighed, said, "C'mere, you," and then began to clear a large enough space behind the counter so that the clock would no longer need to stand out on the sales floor. From then on, whenever a customer asked Juana about that particular clock, Juana just smiled, shook her head, and said, "Sorry, but she's not for sale."

**The End**


End file.
